TikTok’s Chinese affiliations have been known for a long time, and despite the supposed bipartisan support for taking the app down, it is still here.
Another possible execution sentence for TikTok is nearing in the United States. On Tuesday, over a dozen legislators, Republicans and Democrats, banded together to introduce a bill threatening TikTok’s presence in the U.S.
The bill would order ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok and has direct connections to the Chinese communist government, to divest TikTok within half a year. If it refuses to comply, then TikTok will be legally banned from the U.S.
This triggered TikTok, which complained on X, “This bill is an outright ban on TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it. This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs.”
One of the co-sponsors of the bill, Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK), took this as validation of his concerns for national security and responded, “We’re introducing a bipartisan bill to ban spyware owned by foreign adversaries. If that sentence is an existential threat for @TikTokPolicy, then we sure as hell need to ban TikTok.”
Indeed, TikTok, in all its degenerate glory, needs to be banned for the preservation of cybersecurity and society. But surely, since TikTok’s launch in 2016, there has been ample time to take the necessary measures to do so. So why is it still here?
There have been several attempts, some by former President Donald Trump, but they were all snuffed out. In August 2020, Trump issued an executive order to penalize any activity with ByteDance. However, it was never enacted because it was blocked by several federal judges.
Then, Trump’s successor, President Joe Biden, undid Trump’s executive order with his executive order, thereby opening America’s doors to the Chinese social media wing.
Despite all the bipartisan hubbub, TikTok remains firmly implanted in society. Is there, perhaps, any particular reason as to why that is?
A report by the Network Contagion Research Institute in December found a large ratio gap between the number of hashtags regarding topics unsavory to the Chinese government. Hashtags on Instagram far exceeded the same hashtags on TikTok.
Seeing as TikTok suppresses international stories, such as pro-Israeli ones amid the Gaza conflict, it is safe to say the moderators hold left-wing views in a more favorable, and therefore more permissible, light. This makes TikTok a great censorship weapon for the Left.
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Biden and his Democratic constituents have much to gain from this. TikTok announced its commitment to “protecting the integrity of elections” with “reliable voting information.” In other words, expect to hear a lot of pro-Biden and a lot less pro-Trump on the platform in November.
Despite the bipartisan nature of this bill and others like it, it is safe to say that TikTok, by design, behaves as an instrument for propelling Democratic interests. The sooner it can be banned from the country, the more secure our national integrity and the more well informed our people will be.
Parker Miller is a 2024 Washington Examiner winter fellow.
